You Never Really Forget
by Marylaand
Summary: 'Somewhere along the way, things went wrong. Suddenly, we started to hear Tom scream in his sleep every night, and Dougie cry in his room. In just a few weeks, we would be living some if the darkest days if our lives.' Sequel to 'Ghostly White'.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I am back with the sequel to GW! This one will be a darker story than the other was, and it will probably be shorter. You might recognise some parts from 'A Thousand Little Dreams', there will be a bit of that one in Danny's POV. Anyway, I hope you like it ;)**

**The answers to the reviews from GW's last chapter are in the end.**

**_Harry, 18th May, 2005_**

Things had gone well for a while after the scariest night of my life.

In the three following months, we rehearsed like dogs, did interviews on TV, photoshoots, and a video shoot for our song_ Five Colours in Her Hair_, which went to number one.

The second single, _Obviously_, was released just a few months later, and also went to number one, along with the album, where we decided not to include _She Falls Asleep_, as the album had mostly poppy and happy tunes.

After the album release, our lives went completely crazy, and we were incredibly busy all the time with more interviews, more promo, and more rehearsals, for the tour we were going as Busted's opening act, and then for own own tour later. The memories about Lilith and that night had been buried deep in our minds, and we felt happy, as we lived together in our house, getting used everyday to the fame and the attention we were getting, writing songs, and being best friends.

But somewhere along the way, things went wrong.

Suddenly, we started to hear Tom scream in his sleep every night, and Dougie cry in his room, and Danny pace around the house speaking complicated words on the phone that did not match his simple personality, and walking away with sad eyes that did not match his usual good mood.

Not sure of what to do, I went out every night, an easy way out, out of the problems my best friends were having, and called a few mates to have a drink or go to a club. At the time, I thought it was just some phase, that everything would go back to normal between us and that we would be happy again.

Little did I know this was just the begining.

In just a few weeks, we would be living some of the darkest days of our lives.

**_Tom, 18th April, 2005_**

When we are just kids, we look at our parents and other adults, and all we want to do is grow up. We do not really whish to be adults, because we don't know how hard it is, we just want the freedom that comes with being a grown up. I believe we reach a stage in our lives when we stop whishing to grow up and we want to be kids again, and that happened to me, just a few weeks ago.

Why do I want to be a kid again? Why did I suddenly stopped enjoying living with ny friends and just wanted to go back to my parents?

I am finding life somewhat hard, even though mine should not be uneasy. I have the job of my dreams, a successful band, and, more important, a wonderful girlfriend and a group of three amazing best friends.

But I miss my childhood. I miss running in my backyard in my underwear with my sister, I miss spending the afternoons with Giovanna, because both of us had time just to be with each other, I miss going to bed and fall asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Giovanna is still in college, studying drama, and she has been having less and less free time. I am always busy with band matters. The lack of time put our relationship in a strand. Sure, we manage to talk on the phone, and even meet sometimes, but she hardly knows how I am most of the times. She hardly knows what I am going through right now.

Fortunately, nobody knows either.

**_Danny, 19th April, 2005_**

This should not be happening.  
We are in New Orleans, being part of a movie with Lindsay Lohan. Everything should be okay, and we should be having fun. Do not get me wrong, we are. But it's so hard to have a good time when our family is falling apart in the other side of the ocean.

We arrived to New Orleans in the end of March, and we should go back to London in less than a week. Our scenes were recorded in two weeks, we are just staying now for a few shows around here.

I'm loving this. North America has crazy arenas, we totally feel like Springsteen when we play there. The days here are fantastic, we always have something to do, a show, interviews, photoshoots. However, back in the hotel room, my phone starts to ring.

'Danny, I'm telling you, Dad doesn't even come home now, and isn't answering phone calls. Mum is crying, again, that's all she does at night.' I clenched my fists as I heard that. Yes, I was pretty sure my Dad was having an affair. I was also pretty sure that it all had started a long time. 'Danny, I don't know what to do...' I could tell Vicky was in the verge of tears. I was too.

'Stay with Mum, and support her. I... I'll have to work things out with Dad when I come back.' I furiously wipe the tears that run down my cheeks, praying that Vicky doesn't notice that I'm crying.

But she knows me too well.

'Dan, don't cry, please don't cry. It's all gonna be okay. It's a bit messed up right now, but it'll be okay.' Her soft voice answers, making me cry even more, because she is the one that is with my Mum right now, while I am playing shows thousands of miles away from home, from a family that is falling appart.

'Right, bye Vicky.' I manage to say.

'Love you Danny.' She says.

'Love you too, sis.' I put my phone on the bedside table and pace around the room, trying to calm myself down. It doesn't work. Every step hits the ground, the sound echoing through the room in a regular annoying beat. I stop an throw myself to the bed. I can't stay on the bed like that.

I get up and walk to the bathroom, immediately glancing at the mirror. My hair is messed up, it's not even straight anymore, and for some reason, I feel a urge to cut it all off. Under this light, freckles and pimple marks are well noticeable in my face, since I'm not wearing make up.

I was never too insecure about my looks. But when one part of you is endangered, you start doubting everything about you. I always liked my eyes anyway. They're blue, or gray, depending on the time of the day. But right now, they're red and bloodshot.

Furious with myself, I wipe my face fiercely, take off my t-shirt and jeans, throwing it to a pile next to the bathroom door, and go back to my room, to tuck myself under the covers and feel like I never, never want to get out.

**_Dougie, 19th April, 2005_**

My reflexion stares back at me and I feel absolutely disgusted.

_'Dougie, the girls go crazy, because you're so hot!_' I don't care, I don't even know what they see in me.

'_Dougieeeeee! Oh my God, you are sooo freaking cute!_!'

I don't want to be cute anyway. Kids are cute. I'm not a kid, but everyone treats me like one. I'm seventeen now. Two years ago, when we moved to the band house, Danny and Harry were seventeen too, and no one ever treated them like kids. The guys are cool with me, but the fans, managers and everyone else talks about me like I am a shy six year old. The worst is my Mum. I understand she gets worried about me, but is it really that necessary to call my twice a day?

'_Oh, Dougie, you're so young! Only seventeen! And in such a successful band!_'

Yeah, I am seventeen. I can't drink (legally), I can't drive (legally), I can't have a tattoo (legally), but I am - apparently - too old to have a teenage crisis. It's funny how adults say we are tpo young or too old to do certain things, and use those arguments against us just as they like.

I don't wanna be treated like a kid anymore. But I'm so scared to grow up.

**LottiePoynterr: Haha, here it is! Hopefully you'll get more of Dougie's POV next chapter. Thanks for reviewing, and enjoy this one ;D**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: A whole month?! Oh God... Anyway, chapter two is here. I've been so busy with schoool, and I am sorry. The updates will remain slow though, because I still have loads of things to do. I'll try to compensate in the Christmas Holidays. **

**This one won't have much action, but the next one will hopefully have. Enjoy!**

**_Harry, 20th April, 2005_**

I believe being in a band is about having fun.

When I started to play drums, I really enjoyed it. I loved the sound each piece of the drum kit did when I hit it, I enjoyed the rush I felt when I played it, I liked the way my arms got incredibly sore the day after a hard practice. The extra strenght on my upper body was also a bonus.

But being in a band, in a successful band, makes you famous, which allows us to go to parties, meet other famous people, buy expensive things we do not need. And, most importantly for a guy, fame helps in what comes to getting girls.

When me and the guys come out of a show, the adrenaline we feel is unbelievable. Coming back to the tour bus, we see the screaming fans, hundreds of them, who are there just for us. Thinking like this makes you feel important, because you know you do something (music, in our case) that other people enjoy.

We understand this, because we have our own idols, and know how important they are for us. I have loads of them, any good rock or punk rock band, and Tom too. Danny has his obsession for Bruce Springsteen, and Dougie just loves Blink -182.

I never thought I would be considered 'inspirational' for anyone, but after some months dealing with screaming fans, that came to meet us, literally crying in happiness, I realised that, just like Dougie was inspired by Blink and Danny was influenced by Springsteen, those people (mostly girls) had made of us some kind of role models.

Feeling important is a huge part of being famous, and that fitted in my notion of 'fun', along with the parties, sex, and booze.

**_Tom, 20th April, 2005_**

I analysed the picture on my phone, feeling somewhat heartbroken.

We had been messing around in my hotel room, me and Danny playing guitar, and Dougie and Harry making up really dirty lyrics, and after a while I decided I had to take a shower.

Me and the guys have been living together for almost two years now, so getting naked in front if them was definitely not a problem. Not that I had any choice, as the bathroom in the hotel room had glass walls, so whoever was in the room could perfectly see what was happening in the bathroom.

I had just finished taking off my boxers, when Dougie appeared from behind me with my phone. And this is the reason why I have a picture of myself naked on my phone.

The first time I looked at it, I thought it was a perfectly normal photo. It is something I see everyday, and I never really pay attention to it. But then I started to observe it properly.

It is absolutely _disgusting_.

I was never a chubby boy in my teenage years. I was when I was like nine or ten years old, but I eventually got rid of the fat, even though I was not particularly skinny, like Harry or Danny or Dougie.

In the photo, I see longish blonde hair, my brown eyes, my pale skin.  
But my body looks like a huge white inflatable ball, invading the screen of my phone. I shook my head, heading to the bathroom and taking my phone with me. In just a few moments, my clothes fly around me as I take them off as fast as I can in front if the full lenght mirror. Taking one last look at the image on my phone, I look at my reflexion and pinch my stomach with my fingers, measuring the quantity of skin and fat that I could hold.

It is a lot.

Too much.

I turn on my left side and watch the bump that is my belly and pinch it again, wishing the fat will just disappear. My hands travel to my face and I touch my cheeks, feeling more and more like a bloated balloon or like Jabba The Hut.

I am fat.

_**Danny, 23th April, 2005**_

Things have not really changed at home. Dad keeps missing, Mum keeps crying and Vicky keeps calling me to tell me all about what I am not presencing, as if I could do something.

I have always been, since I remember, the pacifist one. My parents would fight, I would talk to my Dad about how Mum did not really mean what she had said, and I would talk to Mum and explain her Dad was just stressed.

But you cannot do much miles away from home, can you?

And I have already realised this is a fight won't be able to step in, because I do not want to.

If my Dad is cheating on my Mum, I want nothing to do with him.

My bags are right beside me. Just My Luck is done, and we are now in an airport, waiting to go back to England. Tom is listening to his iPod, locked in his own bubble, like he has been doing lately. Harry is talking quietly on the phone with someone, and Dougie is half asleep, his head resting in my shoulder. I sigh, and stroke his hair softly, to which he responds by nuzzling his head further in my neck.

It is impossible not to like Dougie, because he is simply adorable and shy when we first meet him, but he is one of the craziest and weirdest when you know him really well. What I envy more in his personality, though, is that he is not afraid of what comes next. He was not afraid to lie to everybody saying he was sixteen instead of fifteen just to get in the band. He was not afraid of moving with us to the band house when we first started, even though we were complete strangers at the time. Or maybe he was, but he still did what he did and just smiled when it turned out fine.

He and Harry are the best of friends. A bit like Tom and I are. Harry likes to protect Dougie and to be the 'older brother he never had', and Dougie sees him a bit like a role model to him, since his father decided to quit his life.

So many children in this world affected by fathers who left their families because of a mid life crisis.

That is unforgivable for me.

**_Dougie, 23th April, 2005_**

It is hard to believe this planet is constantly moving.

I am aware of my own body taking me from place to place on a daily basis, but I do not really take the time to think that everything and everyone around me have their own movement, their own life.

So basically living on Earth is like walking in an escalator, which is somehow pointless.

I am currently fighting my body in a battle I am surely going to lose: sleep.

Despite my head buried in Danny's broad shoulders and my whole body as still as ever, everything around me was in motion: the people on the line for check-in, the middle-high class familes carrying their luggage throughout the whole airport, surrounded by their children, the planes that I could see from the window, landing and taking off, more people coming in or getting out of them, like hurried ants. Harry's eyes, moving back and forth from the book he was reading to his watch.

And, as I slowly learnt, things can move, but it does not mean they change.

Just like the quietest things change the most. The stable ones.

You can live in a perfectly stable life, but one day you get home and notice everything has been changing. The worst is, if you do not know how to deal with it, it destroys you.

I'm not special. I am not a hero. I am not perfect.

But for some reason, I was able to deal with a sudden change, and I haven't been destroyed. Much.

**LottiePoynterr**: Here it is! And there will be a lot more going on for Dougie this time ;)

**Galaxy-Defending-Hopeful**: Thank you so much! i hope you enjoy this one :D

**ILikeToSneeze:** Thank you :)


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